A WORD ABOUT THE ST. HENRY JAMES'S THEATRE.
There is something in a name, especially when it happens to be the title of a play. At the St. James's, Mr. Alexander's latest venture has been Guy Domville, by the American novelist Henry James, who if he knew as much about play-writing as he does about novel-writing would probably be in the first flight of dramatists; and he would not have chosen so hopeless a name for his hero and for his play as Guy Domville. For the anti-James jokers would delight in finding that Guy could be "guy'd," and to say as to "Domville" that "a first night audience 'vill dom' the play." For all that, if Alexander be the sagacious commander in the dramatic field that he has hitherto shown himself, it is not likely that he should have been completely mistaken in accepting a play which a portion of the public has refused to accept. Of course, a manager cannot afford to keep a play going until the public come en masse to see it, and therefore, unless there is "a turn of the tide" (and such things have happened before now, and a condemned piece has had a long and prosperous career), Mr. Alexander will himself be obliged to do to the play what those who ridicule and chaff it have already done, i.e. "take it off."
Mrs. R. admits that she has always been very fond of sweets at dinner. What she is especially fond of is, she says, "a dish of pommes d'Ananias;" and she always adds, "But, my dear, why the French choose such awful names for such nice things is what I never can understand."
